During its quarterly Network Computing '05 (NC05Q1) launch, Sun Microsystems Inc announced it is radically simplifying the way customers select, acquire and use next-generation IT infrastructure through its new Sun Grid utility offerings. Sun Grid allows customers and partners to derive immediate benefits from an open, Grid-based computing infrastructure on a utility basis by giving them more choice and control over how they purchase and leverage IT.

Sun's new utility offerings include the Sun Grid compute utility, a $1 per CPU per hour pay-per-use offering ($1/cpu-hr), and the Sun Grid storage utility, a $1 per gigabyte per month offering ($1/GB-mo). In the coming months, Sun will also roll out additional Sun Grid offerings for the desktop and developer communities.

Sun is already working with customers today from numerous industries, including financial services and oil and gas. The company is in the process of rolling out Sun Grid Centers worldwide; initial locations include Virginia, Texas, New Jersey, Canada and Scotland. Sun expects these centers to be fully operational later this year. After successful customer implementation of its compute utility offerings, Sun plans to release a commercial version of the Sun Grid compute utility later this year. The price is expected to be $1/cpu- hr, with a click-through license and a four hour minimum usage requirement.

"There's an industry misunderstanding at the moment -- it's not computers that are commoditizing, it's computing. What do all commodities have in common? Transparent pricing that can be compared against each other," said Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO at Sun. "Sun is 'lighting up the Grid' and unleashing the computing power of the network for the transparent price of a dollar. We encourage all CIOs and CFOs to look into their data centers and ask themselves if they are spending more than $1/cpu-hr, including electricity, HV-AC and labor. We're certain Sun can reduce costs by an order of magnitude, allowing customers to allocate resources toward activities delivering competitive advantage."

"Sun is further bolstering its leadership position in utility computing with Sun Grid," said William P. Hurley, senior analyst of application infrastructure at Enterprise Strategy Group. "Today's offerings underscore Sun's commitment to use its innovative technology to make it incredibly simple for its customers to go to one vendor for all their computing needs."

Sun partners are seeing opportunity with Sun Grid. "Our customers are looking for ways to reduce operating costs and reduce complexity in their IT environments," said Mike Thompson, managing partner at ICSynergy, a Sun iForce Elite software partner. "Sun Grid gives us an opportunity to optimize our customers' computing environments while providing a real solution for addressing their compute intensive business needs. Our customers trust Sun to provide a secure environment with the latest technology. They're looking to ICSynergy to provide applications that are optimized for Sun Grid."

Sun Grid Provides Simplicity, Transparency

Sun Grid enables customers to simply, predictably and reliably deliver the power of multiple systems resources to a single user for a specific purpose-at the transparent price of $1. With Sun Grid, customers and partners have access to Sun's facilities, resources, systems (both SPARC and Sun x86 platforms) and software, with the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) at the core. Sun's new utility offerings include:

• The Sun Grid compute utility -- provides customers with fully virtualized cpu memory and high-performance storage connected through a secure networked Grid, at a price of $1/cpu-hr. Customers can use it for jobs such as Monte Carlo simulations, protein modeling, reservoir simulations, mechanical CAD simulations and similar non-transactional workloads. The Sun Grid compute utility will deliver a standard computing Grid, powered by AMD Opteron processor-based systems, Solaris 10 OS and N1 Grid Engine, to help provide customers optimal performance, functionality and security. With access to the Sun Grid compute utility, customers will be able to avoid long project lead times by simply plugging into the Sun Grid, radically simplifying how they select, acquire and use next-generation IT infrastructure. By using the Sun Grid, customers can "plug into" a powerful, agile, reliable, cost-effective infrastructure, offloading compute power and applications with optimal security. This pay-per-use model enables customers to move capital expenditures to operational expenditures, allowing for more choice and control in how IT power is purchased and leveraged.
• The Sun Grid storage utility -- supports customers' Grid jobs at a price of $1/GB-mo, or can be used independent of the compute utility. This standardized, high-performance pay-per-use storage offering allows customers to access the resources they need, when they need them. As with any true utility, customers won't have to worry about the exact configuration of the hardware, software and services that comprise the storage. Instead, they can focus on selecting the appropriate class of storage and leave the delivery and management to Sun. The Sun Grid storage utility offers safe and secure storage and is designed to help customers meet their off-line storage demands for capacity, for any length of time.

About Sun Microsystems Inc

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems Inc to its position as a provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com/.